I used Sassanid Persians, I figured they were rubbish in DBM so should be good in the next set of rules ( always thought wargames is like this, suppose it goes back to my GW days and army list power creep). anyway, list was:
IC
3 x TC
4 x 4 Cav Arm, Sup, Undrilled, Bw Sw
1 x 4 Cats HA, Sup, U, Lance Sw
3 x 4 LH U, A, Bw
2 x 2 Elephants
1 x 6 LF U, A, bw
1 x 6 LF U, A, sling
12 BGs............. if only I had known!
So, games as follows, though the order may have been different, but its hard to remember it all now, seems so long ago........
Game 1
Phil Steele, Condotta Italian
Fairly open table, but I won the deployment roll, which was good news, as I got to place my Elephants in front of Phils knights....... first few turns were spent me advancing and Phil trying to manouver is knights across the back of his line covered by some longbowmen............
To see what happened, I threw some Cav into some poor sp with rear bow...... this should have been nasty I found out, but some good dice saved me the unit and I killed a base off the poor foot.....
Not excited by this result and stopped throwing cavalry in and instead stood off the foot at bw range and concentrated shooting, bases were dropping...........
In the meantime the El changed targets to the longbowmen, but this turned out to be not so good an idea, El morale wavered under the barrage, but fortunately the poor foot took too many casualties and broke.... time was called and it was a slight win........
Game 2 Bob Amey Seljuk turk
Bobs List looked similar to mine!!, though he had more cav and I had ele and cats so I thought I had the edge in combat, deployment saw my LH and one cav opposite Bobs left flank of LH, el in the centre , then my right flank was matched by Bobs Cav and Bob ha dthe edge with some more Lh to roll my flank............ I figured I needed to puch in on this game, and thats how the games developed.......
My right flank LH and Cav line forced Bobs LH to back off towards the table edge, the Ele pushed into the centre and Bob took on e unit of them down with some shooting, the other unit charged and pursued some cav till the ele caught them in some rough at the back and killed them.
The Cav on Cav fight off swung one way then the other, but at the crucial point my morale held while my cats drove their opposition off breaking the line and opening the flank up, key to this was a last reserve of a LH unit beating Bobs Sw Lh to cover my flanks...........big win
Game 3 Ray Duggins Lydian
Rays HF were safe against my miserable shooters, so I figures pin them to the front and manouarver on one flank........ tihs was looking good, till my flanking Cats failed 3 manouver tests to wheel which would have had them on the flank of the hoplites........ this delay allowed Ray time to move his cav reserve up to fight the Cats...........stalemate on my attacking flank, stalemate inthe cetnre but on my closed Left flank, Ray had sent his Lh down to try and open it up, but my Ele and Lh line got these booys trapped against some difficult terrain and I was able to grab 3 BGs before the games ended, no army break and a slight win
Game 4, Olivier Dader Ayyubid egyptian
I was on 2ns table, playing the top seed..................... fortunately my mate had his camera so I can proove this...... or rather I would be able to if the game had lasted long enough for a photo to be taken!
I deployed poorly without a clear plan and with a weak centre, Olivier spotted this I think, and very quickly and decisivley made some great first moves, I was on the back foot, clueless as to what to do to get initiatice back and the pressure just kept coming when our evenly matched cav bw lines fired and all of mine went down a level!!
Olivier punched through my non existant centre with his lancer reserves and started to roll my line up......... bugger, I was lost and beaten, and deserved what I got......... at no point did I feel I even made Olivier slow down to think, he didnt need to!
Despite a desperate defence I got trapped in 2 corners of the board. Big Loss.
Game 5 Tony Robinson, Medieval French
After the last beating I was hoping for a easy game, I know Tony and was pleased to be playing him as I knew he would explain rules an dthe such to me .............. though the though of those french knights and I was sure supporting HW made me more than a little nervous...........
Deployment saw the French down first, again I was able to place my Ele opposite the Kn and again my opponent spent the next few turns redeploying the Knights while I tracked them on my side with the Ele, I advanced some cav towards a lgbw line to see what happens and expecting bad news............ shooting wise, my cav had the edge, the bw dropped down a level and the Kn behind failed some manouver tests so were in column with a flank to my cav, all I had to do was go through the bw line with th cav to get the knights in the flank........... in charge the cav, but the bw hold, the french Kn make the manouver tests and are ready to charge, I get desperate and charge the more cav into the Bw ot finish them off, but its an intercept charge from the supporting french KN, at my cav and suddenly from being on top I felt the jaws on defeat nibbling gently at my toes!..........
I shield my Ele from some HW and charge them into the Knights, combat goes well and I break through the left flank knights, roght flanks knights drop a level but hold............bw line is broken and hold my centre with only on cav unit getting whacked by the 3rd knight unit.............
for the next 2 turns I am redepolying to cover my centre and try to finish off the french and during this time the cav unit holding the centre with only 2 bases left looses 2 turns of combat but passed all morales with roll less than 11 and loose no bases with no casualty roll less than a 5......................pah! the French have fell right into my trap of rolling superb dice!
Due to the centre holding, i have time to get some cav at the baggage, and teh Cats into some bw, the combats are short and decisive, with the losses and some frag units the French pack in and the sassaids are on the way up again!
Game 6, Phil Powell Post Latin Conquest Byzantine
After deployment, Phils army looked tough to me, 3 units of knights in the centre, lancers in support of them and plenty of LH.......... I had my cats with LH on the left, my Ele in the centre opposite the knights, and a single line of cav ready to evade any charges on my right............
There was a long time spent while Phil manouvered his knights away from my ele while my ele pushed further into the table....... phils went to flank my right but I has enough Lh and LF to get some critical shooting going and cause failed tests.......... after a trade off of one of my LH units for Phils LF wloing my ele we eventually manouvered to face off along most of the line............ My ele now only had LF in front of them, and my LF had rolled round to 90 degree on the table, but the end of the Left flank was flapping with some of Phils Lh pinning my cav while a knight line had moved to front the Cats off........... in the knights charge and the cats folded in short order.......... the ele hits the LF but not a lot happens........... combat continues for a few turns, the cats are broken and the kn pursue into my flanking cav........... but on the right, in come the byzantine knight and lancers against my cav............ I stand as we are running out of time so why flee............ huzzah! I loose one combat but stand after dropping 2 levels.............. but one of the byzantine lancer units drops a level in the impact and then rolls snake eyes in the melee....... 2 levels dropped and it breaks!!!............. we move onto the JAP, but time is called just as I rally my broken unit............ 6 to me and 5 to Phil..........................
Overall:
I really enjoyed all games, my opponent were all very helpful and I got a good feel for the mechanics of the game system......... the cav armies was fun to use but probably not aggressive enough for me in the long run.............
Prior to the games, and listening to others comments I was looking for the following answers:
Its dull. Nope, I didnt find this at all, quite the opposite, it was fun, fast and fluid, little of the mind numbing detail of DBM.
You just line em up and run em in. Most certainly not! manouver is the king! its easy to move and yet risky as well, great balance on the manouver tests
Theres not a lot to do once combat starts and the game just becomes dice rolling. Didnt get tihs vibe at all........ though it was a shooty cav army so I suppose there should always be something to do............
It relies too heavily on luck. I can see where this one comes from, fewer (
) units on the table than DBM mean big dice swings can have a big impact............... then again, the same faces are gravitating towards the top so it cant be luck reliant. I felt my luck came and went, but I would say that! There were definately laugh and cry moments in most games, so the luck factor is there but its seems about right.Does FOG have depth? the jury is out, but I enjoyed the games and found it easy to play, the mechanics are quite simple and allow intuitive play in most situations.
Now its time to understand the interplay between the various mechanisms....................
Overall I really enjoyed the weekend, my opponents were, without exception, absolute gents and were patient and helpful to a newbie............ I still claim the above is an accurate account of what happened, but I am sure they will have there own perspective on how lucky I was
Good stuff gents...............I will be back for more, though 28mm is tempting for a try!
jon
